Anggun….
Friday, October 7th, 2005I’ve jusT reaLizE thaT i Hav to Be prouD to Be IndonesiaN!
I reaD this ArticLe accidenTaLLy! n i ThoughT manY
peopLe have to read thiS
aLso…. haV a NicE readinG!!
One way of bringing these hidden facets to
light
on Luminescence was to invite a number of
unexpected guest stars
into the studio to serve as
musical counterpoints. Tt was one of the
chosen.
"I’m a big fan of Tt’s work," Anggun explains,
"I love the
elegance of his songwriting… What I
said to Tt before we worked together
was that
rather than trying to put himself in my place,
what I wanted from
him was just to be himself.
That’s how the song ‘L’improbable cours
des
choses’ came about. That’s a song only Tt could
write!" As for the
version of the single tre une
femme which features on the album, Anggun
insisted on including a burst of rap,
collaborating with French rap diva
Diam’s. "Diam’s
represents another kind of femininity, one
that’s
different from my own but at the same time
complementary. I thought
it would be interesting
to have her point of view on the song, not
to
mention her presence, her strength and her
personality."
The
lyrics to tre une femme (Being a Woman) are
hardhitting by Anggun’s previous
pop standards, as
if the years spent in France have raised her
awareness
of the female condition. "I get the
impression that although France is a much
more
‘civilised’ country than my homeland, certain
things still need to be
spelt out," she says, "I’m
involved with the association ‘Ni putes,
ni
soumises’ and I’ve heard the most awful stories
about kids growing up
on problem housing estates,
the way young girls are suffering because
they’re
not free to do what they want with their bodies. I
find that
totally shocking! What I’m saying on
‘tre une femme’ is that being a woman
is
something you have to assume, even if in some
countries that’s a highly
complicated business.
But we shouldn’t give in to basic machismo.
The
message we have to get out there is that the
problem isn’t women’s
bodies, it’s what’s in men’s
heads! And that’s a very important message.
I’ve
come to realise over the years that I’m lucky to
be a Muslim woman
who grew up in such an open,
tolerant country. Things are very different
in
France where, unfortunately, there are still major
issues around
this."
Anggun has proved her commitment on a wider global
scale, too,
acting as a spokesperson for the
International Year of Micro-credit (a
U.N.
programme aimed at eradicating debt in the third
world). "The
programme is based on the U.N.
lending people small sums of money, say 20 or
50
euros," she explains, "That may be nothing to us,
but in rupees it
represents a lot of money
enough for someone to start their own
small
business or something. Indonesia is one of the
countries where
micro-credit has been a big
success. The programme’s specially targeted
at
women, giving them a more important place in the
home, because it’s
normally men who bring home the
money. Did you know there are 13,000 islands
in
Indonesia? It’s a wealthy country, full of natural
resources like gold
and diamonds, but those riches
don’t filter down to the poor. Now, thanks
to
micro-credit, women can progressively start to
change their lifestyle
and their social status…
I feel very proud and very honoured to have
been
chosen as the ambassadress of a cause like this."
All we can say is,
it’s good to see a celebrity
shine as luminescently on the social front
as
under the showbizz spotlights!
